There is NO ITIL CAREER PATH. There are roles, jobs and careers in IT as well as other areas where ITIL has no bearing in addition to those roles, jobs and careers in IT where ITIL has a part

If you are a s/w eng type, you should be more concerned with good coding standards, proper project management (PRINCE2, PMP, PMBOK), source code management, testing etc than ITIL.

Having ITIL certification (foundation) is the equivilant of passing intro to programming course

You can write pseudo code using iterative, sequential and conditional programming. You can write the code in the appropriate language with the appropriate level of comments

That is all

ITIL certification and 10 years of IT experience is the same as !ITIL and 10 years of experience.

Experience counts more than certification

Now, If you move from a code monkey role (no offense intended- thank shakespeare hoary) to a mgr of code monkeys, then yes ITIL concepts may come to play - especially code and release management - but these are also part of other skills

NOTE: This site is not the place to tell you what you should do with your education / career goals. ONLY YOU CAN DO THAT.

Key questions to ask your self

What do I want to do after university >- besides earn money to pay back university
Do I like what I am doing or
Do I enjoy it or tolerate it
Is it a avocation or vocation ?_________________John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)